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by cecilantro



Series: Dreamwalking [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 11:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14617143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: Molly has never beencalledto someone else's dream before, but when his home calls for him, he must go.





	Home

It’s somehow, almost, almost a relief to fall asleep and wake up in the nightmare again, it’s familiar territory and tonight it isn’t terrifying like it usually is. Maybe it’s to do with Molly wandering along in the last time he slept through this, maybe it’s the relief and terror of divulging his secrets to someone else. Maybe the real world is more terrifying than the nightmare.   
The wind hasn’t gotten through its whispers before he’s opening his eyes to flames, there’s the twitch and twinge and everyone he’s ever killed is here.    
He’ll change it, one day. And not just in his dreams.   
It’s not as terrifying, no, but it’s still painful. It still hurts. Nott is still there, half-charred. The burn marks still cover Yasha’s face in red raw handprints.   
He pauses extra long tonight beside Beau. Kneels and pulls her body in to him, he kisses her temple, because he could never express to her the gratitude he feels to her when they’re both awake. She doesn’t care, but  _ of course she does _ , Nott comes at Caleb with teeth bared and sword drawn but Beau can’t, Beau doesn’t know how to. Beau does what she thinks is right, and they work so similarly that it’s almost exactly the right thing, the thing that hurts and soothes and aches all at the same time.   
He feels bad for dismissing her like he did, but what else could he do?   
He squishes his arms once more around the dream corpse of Beauregard before standing up, strokes his fingertips over his hair as he moves on.   
“Mollymauk?” He calls to the alleyway where Molly’s corpse is usually found, “Are you with me tonight?”   
There’s silence other than the crackle of the flames, and Caleb sits next to the body he’s found. He lays his hand over the charred print on the dead Molly’s chest and sighs, heavy with regret and relief in the same breath.

 

Molly has had a  _ wonderful _ night. It’s been far too long since he’d had the chance to get laid, after all, it’s a hell of a stress reliever. He’d paid for a change in sheets for Fjord, of course, he’s no animal, and his roomie had rewarded him kindly with a kiss to the cheek, uncharacteristic of Fjord but he’d turned over and gone to sleep straight away. Blame it on the exhaustion.   
It’s been a while since he’s been sucked into someone’s dream, and when he dreams tonight, he knows it’s his own. A hazy, too-bright impression of the foyer, the party, he watches Beau chugging leftover drinks and chuckles for her affectionately.    
He feels a tug at his sleeve and turns, it’s Nott, her yellow eyes are wide and she points over to Caleb.   
Well, that’s new, he supposes.   
Caleb is fading in and out of appearing far too real and far too much crying, and hazing away into a Caleb-shaped hole in the fabric of his dream.   
“Mollymauk?” he hears the wizard’s voice as though from a distance, even though he’s already stepping closer. He takes a drink from Beau as he moves past her and she yelps, but she’s not real. So it doesn’t matter.   
The Caleb that he sees turns his eyes from his hands to Molly’s face, there’s the soft outline that suggests he isn’t real, but what Molly sees is.   
“Are you with me?” he hears, and the face in front of him fades out to a vision of what he knows to be Caleb’s nightmare. The man  _ literally _ becomes a door to his own nightmare, and Molly doesn’t think twice before stepping through, he tips the drink down his throat and throws the glass behind him as he moves. He doesn’t hear it shatter, and when he turns to look over his shoulder, the portal back to his own dream is gone and he stands in the middle of Caleb’s firescape nightmare.   
He moves from one friend to the next, looking for him. He notices Beau’s been moved by the way the black outline on the wall doesn’t quite, quite match up to her shoulders, by the gently blistering burn in the shape of a kiss at her temple. He knows that wasn’t here the last time he was.   
He checks his own body last, maybe it’s because he knows that Caleb will be there, perhaps he hopes that he’s wrong.   
Caleb looks up as he turns the corner into the alleyway and Molly hears a choked sob. Caleb stands and throws himself at Molly, unbridled in his dreams in ways he couldn’t possibly hope to be when he’s awake.   
They haven’t talked about this since.   
They haven’t even mentioned the kiss, kisses, really, neither Fjord nor Caleb has acknowledged that Molly has pulled them out of their own nightmares. Things have been different, somewhat, Molly always makes sure that Caleb isn’t alone.   
“I said,” Molly mumbles into Caleb’s hair, “No more sleeping alone.”   
“I- I did not wish to, to interrupt-”   
“You could have come back.” Molly says, firmly, “You could have come  _ home _ .”   
Molly feels Caleb freeze like ice in his arms. He draws back and away and breaks all contact, Molly’s blood stops running, what has he done?   
“I- I do not have a home. There is no such  _ thing _ as home, Mollymauk.”   
Molly doesn’t move, but he holds his arm out, reaching for Caleb,   
“You feel like home to me.”   
Caleb stares, silent, for a few long, agonising seconds.   
He begins to chuckle. Not from amusement, but the kind of manic laughter that Molly knows means he just… can’t. And then the tears come, and Molly still doesn’t move. He holds his hand out to Caleb.   
“If you don’t have a home to go back to, Caleb, at least bring  _ my _ home to me.”   
Caleb is shaking wildly, he reaches blindly out for Molly’s fingers and finds them, they clasp and he lets Molly tug him back in to an all-encompassing hug, he finds his face buried in his free hand as he’s pulled up against Molly’s shoulder.   
“Thank you.” Molly says, muffled again by the top of Caleb’s head. And he realises that they’re still in the dream, he looks around, because the last time he was here, they woke up when he hugged Caleb.   
“Still asleep?” Molly asks, and Caleb, still shaking with sobs, nods into his shoulder.   
“I am not ready to wake up, yet.” He manages, his voice thickened by accent and tears. “This is better than the idea of being awake.”   
“Is it?” Molly sounds incredulous, he strokes soft patterns into Caleb’s back.   
Caleb pauses to think for a few moments.    
“It was about the same, I think. And then I called for you.”   
“And I came.” Caleb hears the smile in Molly’s voice. “You really  _ do _ feel like home to me, Caleb, and the closest thing I’ve ever had is the carnival. If you can’t find yourself a home, a  _ real _ home, then I hope I can be that for you, too. I’ll always be here when you need me.”   
Caleb tilts up, the flow of tears begins to slow. His eyes are so blue. Molly can see the open sky of possibility behind them, through the lock of hurt and anguish. Molly smiles, reassurance and affection and he aches.   
“Come home, Caleb.”   
It’s Caleb that kisses Molly this time, presses up onto tiptoes for the short distance between them and closes it, tangles his fingers at the back of Molly’s neck and it’s when he pulls away that the world dissipates and he sits up in bed.

Caleb looks over to Nott before anything else, she’s curled up beside him like a cat, and Frumpkin curls beside her. He slips away, out from the covers, his shirt is plastered to his back and his hair is damp with sweat but he was given the command- no, the request.   
Molly’s door is unlocked, and he sits awake on the edge of the bed, staring intently at the door. When Caleb comes in, he stands, they step in together as the door clicks closed and they kiss. It’s long, sweet, not desperate as they had before but the taste of relief. Of home.   
“You don’t ever have to tell me what’s wrong if you don’t ever want to.” Molly murmurs, he walks backwards until he and Caleb can climb into bed behind Fjord, “I don’t need to know why, I just need to know that you hurt, and I’ll be here.”   
Caleb chokes on tears, it hurts to swallow them down again, he kisses at Molly’s collarbone as he tucks himself under the tiefling’s chin. He’s still stark naked. A problem for the morning, for sure.   
“Thank you.” Caleb rasps to Molly’s skin, and Molly squishes with the arm over him. The silence settles and they fall away again.   
There is only one word rattling around in Caleb’s mind now that it’s been drained of all the poison infecting his dreams. Just one, and he’s cuddling it.   
_ Home _ .


End file.
